Sunday, January 16, 2011

What's more dangerous?

Comments (40)

Impossible to say, since you're comparing an activIty that's about as rare as Hope Diamonds with one that's about as common as, well, riding a bike.

And riding a bike wouldn't be as dangerous if only People who went through fantastically expensive training and selection progrAms were allowed to compete for the very limited opportunities to do it, and they spent billions on each ride.

But, other than that, point well taken. Bikes are very hazardous. As soon as the MORE dangerous transport problems are solved, then we should definitely do Something about the bikes. I'm for complete separation from cars myself, with a nice network of carless roads provided in parallEl to the roads for machine powered vehicles ...seems like everyone would be happier.

Bicycles are hazardous, and their hazards should be disclosed to people if the government is going to spend millions to promote them. Cyclists would get that disclosure, and learn how to avoid the problems, if there were some sort of mandatory training and licensing system in place, as there is with motorcycles. There are also some places where bicycles shouldn't be allowed -- Highway 26 west of town, for starters. 'Til then, see you in the emergency room next to the astronaut with the broken hip -- or maybe at the undertaker's when that semi doesn't see you.

Bicycles are hazardous, and their hazards should be disclosed to people if the government is going to spend millions to promote them. Cyclists would get that disclosure, and learn how to avoid the problems, if there were some sort of mandatory training

Roughly 40,000 Americans die in automobile accidents every year, compared to about 650 bicyclists (90% were not wearing helmets). In other words, only about 60 cyclists who are wearing a helmet are killed annually.

Clearly, the biggest threat to public health, safety and welfare is bicycles. Keep up the anti-bike crusade, folks.

I've been driving on public roads (leaving out the earlier field car experiences) since I was not quite 16. That's almost 40 years of driving (minus the year in Boston with no car and the first year and a half of PDX with no car). I had a bike in college (4 yrs) and one in the early 80s for less than 5 years. During the times I had a bike, I also had a car and was driving a lot more than cycling. My point being that I and most other people have logged a lot more public road miles in cars than on bikes. Almost no one I work with commutes by bike to work and those that do, pretty much don't in the winter. So if you want your bogus statistics to be meaningful (you know the adage - figures cannot lie but ...) let's have an apples to apples comparison. Fatalities per mile traveled in cars versus fatalities per mile traveled on bicycle. Until then, all there is noise from your corner.

There is some reason to think that existing safety issues would be improved with more cycling, rather than less. Especially if it were accompanied by better driver training and more stringent driver licensing standards.

Roughly 40,000 Americans die in automobile accidents every year, compared to about 650 bicyclists (90% were not wearing helmets). In other words, only about 60 cyclists who are wearing a helmet are killed annually.

Comparing the raw headcount of auto/bike fatalities is worthless by itself. The number of fatalities per trip per technology would be a valid comparison. There's no point in even looking up what is the obvious answer.

Right. The *fact* that 40,000 people die in auto accidents while 650 die in bicycle accidents is meaningless.

Unless of course you're not obsessively, compulsively anti-bicycle.

Yes, normalizing the data by VMT paints a different picture. As does normalizing by travel time. But aggregate numbers are not "meaningless" if you value human life. Or are concerned with public health.

Joey, you've picked the wrong audience. Here, the mantra is, unless public funds are spent directly on cars and their infrastructure, they're wasted and misused. The idea that people who wish to drive are advantaged by measures that encourage bicycles, or that it may be good policy to encourage and support cycling for public health or energy conservation purposes, is too foreign and complex for them and doesn't resonate with their immediate perception of self-interest.

Personally, I was talking about Joey's misuse of the helmet statistic, which he misused to imply that not wearing one was a contributing factor in all but 10% the deaths he named. There is simply no proof of that. In fact, not wearing a helmet is almost always the least of the cyclists' problem in fatal auto-bike accidents. Helemt use would not have saved a single rider in any of the most recent PDX deaths. But those "facts" don't stop the pimping of a bogus statistical analysis. Take a statistics and logic class, then maybe you'll have more success using them to make a point.

I was talking about Joey's misuse of the helmet statistic, which he misused to imply that not wearing one was a contributing factor in all but 10% the deaths he named.

Misuse of the helmet statistic? Imply? I presented data, including what I found to be an interesting data point that 90% of the 650 bicycle deaths involved people who were not wearing helmets. There's no implication. It was a parenthetical aside.

If you really want to start massaging the data so it tells the "true story" (?!), perhaps we should include the health and environment implications of auto emissions, the automobile's role in Americans' increasingly sedentary lifestyles, etc.

The only implication I'm trying to make is that bicycles are not the evil of evils. I simply don't understand the obsession and demagoguery. There are greater threats/costs/etc. to society.

I think the market is going to move faster than the argument. The ongoing revolution in computer modeling and design + increased sophistication with materials and fabrication techniques + increased consumer interest in non-auto modes of transport are all likely to complicate the issue with greater speed in the coming years. Innovations tend to force changes, and in unexpected ways. Obviously we're not seeing Segways everywhere but there's no doubt that a greater variety of vehicles will continue to press into spaces where cars dominate. And the familiar ones — scooters, bicycles, skateboards, etc. — continue their evolution in speed and performance in ways that surprise and worry passing drivers.

So much of America's infrastructure came of age with, and was built exclusively for, automobiles that using it with any other sort of vehicle is definitely inherently dangerous as well as something of a counter-cultural act. In a car, it's an unbelievably awesome system. But even if it were a perfect system we're hardly a species that can leave well enough alone. Changes are coming. I personally hope that, like the early days of flight, all of the terrible decisions, miscalculations, rocketing fatalities, and crass spectacle leads somewhere pretty cool.

What was "erroneous" about the usage of statistics? About 40,000 people die in automobile accidents every year. Fact. About 650 people die in bicycle accidents every year. Fact. People can interpret data in different ways.

Simply asserting that someone has misused these facts because you don't like them is disingenuous. Tsk tsk. No wonder everything is falling apart.

One of the things that rather proves the delusions of the bikes are better crowd is another whole issue involving statistics. Quite bluntly, the populations going to quickly skew towards aging (the first of the Baby Boomers are reaching retirement age this very year). And most retirees are not likely to make bicycles their transportation of choice for a lot of reasons.

Between 2010 and 2050 the 65 and over population in the US will increase from 13% to 20%.

America's elderly population is expected to reach 72 million by 2030, more than double the number in 2000.

As boomer whose joints are already not in great shape, the thought of giving up my very safe and cushy ride with heated seats for a bicycle is unlikely. I thought about buying one for recreation last year and the urban test ride convinced me I was better off walking than dealing with a bike.

So when bikers have to get licensed and their bikes get registered to pay for their use of the streets, I might be inclined to listen. Until then, what I hear is just more entitled whining.

Yeh, Allan L., I'm with you-"safety issues would improve with more cycling".

I've noticed that when ants head out from their nest, the column with the singular or a few ants dart everywhere, backtracking, flipping around. But the columns that have numerous ants, everything seems to have less accidents.

As a lifestyle choice, I suspect being sedentary (ie sitting on the sofa in front of the boob tube) is a lot more dangerous, and causes more deaths and attendant societal costs than riding a non polluting bicycle. Most of us survived childhood on a bicycle without a helmet. You can't eliminate all dangers in life. I just don't get the sharpness of the anti bike rhetoric on this site. Where does it come from? What is the threat that so many seem to feel about those who choose bicycles as a mode of transportation. Don't we have enough fear mongering in our daily press and politics without inciting paranoia about something as common place and simple as bicycles.

Is riding a bike across town more dangerous than walking in space? Intuition says no. But I can guarantee you that the bike trip costs a hell of a lot less.

"Roughly 40,000 Americans die in automobile accidents every year, compared to about 650 bicyclists (90% were not wearing helmets). In other words, only about 60 cyclists who are wearing a helmet are killed annually."

Joey, When you remove riders not wearing helmets from your statistical "analysis" of bike fatalities, you (consciously or not) imply that wearing a helmet would have saved their lives, a leap of faith for which there is no proof in the evidence you provided. That was my point.

Is it safer to wear a helmet than not? Of course it is. But lets not pollute debates with poorly used "data." It's already been mentioned, but just because someone points out a gigantic flaw in your argument doesn't mean they disagree with your general principle.

P.S. Use of parentheses is a totally awesome way to let readers know that you want something to be considered as a "parenthetical aside." Using a phrase like "in other words" will put whatever follows smack dab in the middle of your point, not on the side.

What is the threat that so many seem to feel about those who choose bicycles as a mode of transportation.

It's not a threat, so much as (a) the annoyance you feel when a cyclist unnecessarily slows you down or forces you to take evasive action, and (b) a real fear that you're going to hit one of the clowns who pull daredevil stunts and ride around at night in their best hipster black.

I have to disagree. I know a number of retirees that bicycle daily for recreation and fitness.

These folks are mostly in rural Oregon (to wit: Madras, Vale, Grants Pass, Cottage Grove) and simply experience the fun and fitness that comes with biking, even though they don't have nearly the infrastructure we have here.

Road Work

Miles run year to date: 113
At this date last year: 155
Total run in 2016: 155
In 2015: 271
In 2014: 401
In 2013: 257
In 2012: 129
In 2011: 113
In 2010: 125
In 2009: 67
In 2008: 28
In 2007: 113
In 2006: 100
In 2005: 149
In 2004: 204
In 2003: 269